The Tribes: Ascend website is now accepting signups for Hi-Rez Studios' revival of this beloved multiplayer shooter series. They offer client downloads and account registration for the free-to-play game, and here's word on what to expect:

Hi-Rez Studios, independent developer of AAA free-to-play online games, today announced the official release of Tribes: Ascend. The fast-paced, sci-fi multiplayer shooter has completed Beta testing and is now a live PC game available for digital download.

Tribes: Ascend is the world's fastest shooter. The game features jetpacks, skiing, vehicles, team-based gameplay, and cutting-edge graphics using Unreal 3 technology. With this official release, the game is available for download directly from the developer at www.tribesascend.com.

Recent additions include the CTF map Raindance, as well as a new game-mode called Capture and Hold. The Release build also includes a preview of the Custom Server functionality that will soon be available to players.

"For the past 15 months, we've had a very passionate dev team working hard toward this goal," said Todd Harris, Hi-Rez Studios COO. "Along the way some publishers told us modern gamers couldn't handle an FPS that was fast-paced and skill-based. We believe otherwise. Players seem to agree since we've had well over 500,000 join our Beta. We're excited to now grow the community further with the official release."

Drezden wrote on Apr 12, 2012, 17:04:Game has been excellent the last few beta builds. Have been enjoying the rush of high speed flag capping just like back in the original game. Have had quite a few pucker your butthole moments when just barely getting a flag cap while being chased by half the opposing team.

Like 3 patches ago the game really hit it's stride. I hate the Jackal, 70% of my deaths happen because of the damn jackal (and it barely breaks cloak which I *really* hate), but the physics were refined, the blast radius of everything seems to finally work pretty well (I'd use the thumper and people would be inside the blast animation and take no damage), and it generally feels pretty tight. The launch day patch is even better, because as a technician I finally get to see when my turrets die. Yay!

As far as Pay to Win, you have access to the spinfusor in every class you get for free. You need nothing else to pwn.